i don't do bad sauce passes
Three Goblin Art
pixel skylines
blake kathryn
taylor price
AnasAbdin
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
ojovivo
YOU ARE THE REASON
Game of Thrones Daily
Keni
Cosimo Galluzzi
dirt enthusiast
wallacepolsom
One Nice Bug Per Day
Kaledo Art
roma★
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
⁂
Xuebing Du
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from Netherlands
seen from Netherlands
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Malaysia
seen from Canada
@induscrafts
Ajrak cushions featured in the famous #cokestudio BTS room. Inbox us for orders of Ajrak cushion covers. #ajrak #induscrafts #cokestudio12 #artisanmade #sindh #sindhiajrak https://www.instagram.com/p/B3g-hJip7Un/?igshid=oys1y4saf4z7
Shades of blue
We are sure every lady would like to carry her phone in this beautiful smartphone sleeve with hand-embroidery & mirror-work from #Sindh, #Pakistan #mostrecommended at #IndusCrafts [email protected] #handmadeinpakistan #handmade #embroidery #artoftheday #artist #art #craft #craftoftheday #artisan
With hearts warm, with thoughts deep, may #2016 be a means of gratefulness. #HappyNewYear
The beautiful Interior of ‘Begum Shahi Mosque’ in Lahore, Pakistan. --@induscrafts
Mosque of Mariyam Zamani Begum also known as Begum Shahi Mosque is a mosque situated in the walled City of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. It was built by Nuruddin Salim Jahangir, for his mother Mariam-uz-Zamani (Rajkumari Heer Kunwar), a hindu wife of mughal emperor, Akbar. The mosque is located inside the old Masti Gate and is one of Lahore’s first mosques.It was made into a gunpowder factory by Ranjit Singh due to the mosque’s utilization, that the mosque became known as Barudkhana Wali Masjid. In 1850 the mosque was returned to the Muslims of Lahore who were able to contribute to it.
Labour of Love
Ustad Inam pours his soul into his work, only to sell it for next to nothing. His art is resold at prices many times over what he earns in upscale galleries and shops, but he works hard regardless, just to keep his craft alive.
He sits on the dusty floor by the cemented walls of his small studio in Landhi (Karachi, Pakistan), his rough fingers skillfully engraving a dancing Anarkali on a brass vase, unaware of the fact that he is the only craftsman in Karachi who specializes in engraving scenes from the Mughal era on brassware. Because he is not aware of his own value, Ustad Inam sells his art for much less than it is worth, just to ensure he can feed his family of eight.
Ustad Inam, 37, deftly engraves cultural and historical scenes on brass vases, employing the Muradabadi craft of his forefathers, generally known as ‘khudai ka kaam’ (i.e. Craft of engraving). His work distinguishes itself from the regular flower designs that decorate brassware found in abundance in Peetal Gali at Golimar, Karachi.
“I learnt how to engrave Mughal figures from my father, Ustad Ikram, who was the only master of this art in Karachi after partition.”
Ustad Ikram learnt this art in Muradabad, the hub of engraved art in India for centuries, and practiced it innovatively after he migrated to Karachi.
“He sketched a hundred figures in various compositions depicting Mughal culture and after years of practice, he excelled at engraving,” Inam says proudly, “After a few years, he could draw straight onto brass plates and vases from life.”
Inam himself does not know how to engrave all of the hundred figures though. “I worked with my father for 20 years, but he died before he could impart all his knowledge to me.” Inam is saddened by the fact that his father’s specialized art lays buried beneath layers of earth instead of having been passed from one generation to the next.
“Detailing these figures requires a lot of hard work and is very time-consuming too,” Inam tells Kolachi while engraving the tiniest flowers on a dupatta /shawl adorning a beautiful princess. “All etching on the vases is done by hand and even the smallest jerk can ruin a day’s worth of effort,” Inam adds as he painstakingly colours the tips of leaves on the dupatta.
Ustad Inam usually makes up to fifty vases in a month. As he is very thorough about the detailing, fully decorating even a six inch vase takes him around three to four days to complete.
“Vases are washed in acid before anything else. Then they are sprayed with deco paint, sketched on and the background of figures is painted in different colours. Once this is done, the composition is engraved and colour is stippled in using a straw. The final piece is dried in a furnace and polished before being plastic-coated,” he tells Kolachi.
Despite all his painstaking efforts, Inam only manages to make a paltry 10000 rupees each month, and sometimes not even that. A pair of 40 inch vases made after a week’s labour sell for 6000 rupees at his seth’s shop in Golimar, yet earns him no more than 200 rupees.
His wholesaler, however “earns thousands for the over 50 vases I sell him a month, as he sells them to exporters.”
Brassware handicrafts don’t have a huge market in Karachi. According to a rough estimate, the city holds only five per cent of brass made handicrafts, which can be found in Golimar, Cooperative Market, Zainab Market and a few shops in Clifton and Zamzama. The rest are sold to markets in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. A major chunk of profit is earned through exporting brassware to China, Saudi Arabia and Canada with the pieces depicting Mughal culture sold at prices approximately 25 per cent higher than the regular, uncoloured pieces worked with phool patti.
Inam on the other hand, is paid just about enough to make ends meet. “I don’t earn enough to save,” says Inam who is simply sticking to the profession for the sake of preserving his father’s art. “When I am engraving, I feel as though my father is alive.”
Though his work demands to be appreciated for its precision and aesthetic value, Inam dreams simple dreams for himself.
Despite being proud of his skill, Ustad Inam has never exhibited his work in galleries since he neither regards himself an artist nor is he knowledgeable and resourceful enough to have access to them. “I don’t know if I can exhibit my work in galleries. I don’t even know whom to talk to if I want to book myself space in a gallery. If I could earn 15000 rupees instead of the 10000 I earn now, I would be a happy man!”
An Article from “Jang Newspaper”
Rasheeda’s Lost Life – Indus Crafts
My name is Shareefa, I am 55 years old. I want to tell you about Rasheeda who died couple of months ago. She was my daughter-in-law (wife of my son).
She was 25 years old and was pregnant with her 4th baby. During her pregnancy, I regularly took her to lady doctor who lives in a nearby village (1.5 hours drive), unfortunately we do not have any lady doctor in our village. As Rasheeda had couple of miscarriages before this pregnancy, the lady doctor suggested us to admit her to Jacobabad city hospital couple of days before the expected delivery date. The hospital is around 3 hours drive from our village on rickshaw or via bus which comes only two times a day.
We were all very happy as Rasheeda and baby were healthy and she was supposed to give birth in safe environment of city hospital. A week before expected delivery date, i hired the rickshaw to take her to visit city hospital. I still remember that she was so happy that day, she kissed her children and asked her sister to take care of kids till she returns with their (newborn) brother. We left for the hospital early in the morning, i kept some extra cash with me (around PKR 5000) for any emergency situation.
We reached the hospital after 3 hours of journey in hot summer day. After the medical checkup, the lady doctor told us that there are some complications involved and we need to deposit PKR 40,000 urgently so that Rasheeda can be admitted to the hospital at earliest for a delivery operation.
I were very confused and worried on how to arrange such a huge amount. That day we came out of the hospital and stayed at home of our relatives in Jacobabad. In order to arrange some money, i contacted my son (her husband), he was in Quetta that time for some labour work. He promised me to send some money by next day. It was very difficult to arrange such big amount at such a short notice. I even offered my gold earrings to the hospital as a guarantee for payment (expected next day). None of them (even our relatives) relied on my words may be because i was poor and they thought i won’t payback.
Same day late night, Rasheeda felt the pains of delivery, so I took her to another Government hospital. She gave birth to a dead baby. We were thankful to Allah that at least mother’s life is saved. But we didn’t know that she was alive for few hours only. She was sad and shocked to hear about her dead baby. She fell unconscious and died after few hours. Next day I received the money sent by my son, but it was too late now. I used the same money for her funeral.
I still feel that I could have saved her life if somebody had lend me some money that day.
At this old age, now I take care of Rasheeda’s three young children (all below age of 5). I have started to make rillis along with routine farming activities to get some financial support to feed these kids.
A note from Indus Crafts:
This is our first story submission at any platform (for the first time published by Stories Beyond Borders). Volunteers at Indus Crafts met with Shareefa last month and recommended her as beneficiary of our program. We wish we could have met Rasheeda few months before and could have helped her during that critical moment. Lack of public health facilities in rural areas of Pakistan is one of the main cause of deaths during pregnancy. The situation becomes even more complicated due to prevailing poverty of these marginalized communities living in abject poverty.
Ralli Quilts (رلّي) – Struggle for Social Justice from Indus Crafts on Vimeo.
This story was originally posted by Stories Beyond Borders
Stories Beyond Borders is a crowd-sourced human storytelling platform for advocacy. These stories will inform, educate and support policy change. Every story will be told by the individual who’s been impacted. Do you have a story to tell? Please submit a story on their website or download the app. http://bit.do/SBBonGooglePlay
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai has announced that she is donating US$ 50,000 – all of the prize money from her prestigious World’s Children’s Prize – to rebuild an United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school damaged during the recent fighting in #Gaza. “Innocent Palestinian children have suffered terribly and for too long. We must all work to ensure Palestinian boys and girls, and all children everywhere, receive a quality education in a safe environment. Because without education, there will never be peace,” said Malala.
Get details and read her remarks in full at: http://j.mp/1u7uVwb
Our Community Manager in Pakistan, Sarah Imran, spent some time with our artisans in Hafizabad to learn how the floods have affected them. Despite the struggles they are facing, these women have a courage and bravery that remains resilient!
Read about Sarah’s experience after a chat with our...
I found her crushing up rocks and loading them onto the back of a truck, for which she got paid just a few dollars a day. But she also told me she was enrolled in school, and had high ambitions. “Maybe I’ll be President,” she said, laughing. "What would you do if you were?" I asked. "I’d take all the children off the street, bring them somewhere, and teach them," she said. Afterwards, she wrote down her name and email, so I could send her the picture. Her name was ‘Innocent Gift.’ (Juba, South Sudan)
When Jessica Hendricks first traveled to Cambodia she was not only mesmerized by the craftsmanship displayed by the culture, but she was also shocked to learn that 90 percent of the country’s artists were killed during the genocide of the 1970s. Even today, Cambodia, and especially the women in it, is still recovering. Jessica returned home determined to forge a connection between female artisans in Cambodia and customers in the United States, and with this idea she founded The Brave Collection. This social enterprise provides fair-trade job opportunities and benefits to jewelry artisans, and donates 10 percent of every sale to organizations fighting human trafficking. For each piece sold this week, an additional $5 will be donated to creative programming for girls in Cambodia. Read more about Jessica and The Brave Collection at the www.apathappears.org blog.
<3 loving it!
A beautiful collage of the 'rillis' handmade by our women artisans.
Ms.Tricia Stoddard - The Rilli Ambassador wearing the famous Rilli Shirt, is exhibiting her beautiful collection of Rilli Quilts at BYU Museum of Art exhibit 'Fabric of Belonging'. The exhibit will continue till November 2014, don't forget to visit if you are nearby. — at BYU Museum of Art, UT, USA.
Parchan Shaal Pavaar (Cover) - Jatin Udasi Feat Siddharth Amit Bhavsar. #Sindhi
In Pakistan, Two Landscapes and Livelihoods Just a Short Drive Apart
A snapshot of two adjacent areas with both unique and overlapping food security challenges.
I recently went on a field visit to our country programs in Pakistan. I was there to facilitate a training for our program teams with a focus on how we can best implement our activities to make the biggest impact on under-nutrition in children under five and in pregnant and nursing women, and to visit our field interventions in the southern Province of Sindh, in Dadu District.
The training was a great success, with a mix of our Food Security and Livelihoods, Nutrition and Health, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, and Management teams in attendance, all learning together. Of a total of 25 staff members involved, we had four women as part of our Senior Management team present in the training, which is a great success given that many women still face professional hurdles there. In the training, the team was able to identify a number of bottlenecks which they can quickly and effectively address to improve our impact.
My journey to Dadu involved a two-hour flight from Islamabad, the capital, to Karachi in the south, and an additional five hours by car to Dadu. Dadu District is one of the most vulnerable districts in the country in terms of poverty levels, access to water, health care and other services. Nearly 50% of the population lives at the poverty line. Dadu lies along the large and famous Indus River, posing a risk for seasonal flooding when the river comes over its banks during snow melting season in the mountains.
Neighboring areas, seemingly a world apart
The areas along the river are the lowlands, green and lush with rice fields, livestock, and seemingly no lack of resources. Unfortunately the agriculture system and access to land for the most vulnerable is very restricted, as there’s a land tenure system by which the local farmers are cultivating the land owned by big landlords, and are obliged to give up to 75% of their harvests to them. Once vulnerable households are stuck in the system there is rarely a way out, and their families will remain in extreme poverty and exposed to vulnerabilities like undernutrition, diseases, and lack of resources.
Traveling from the lowlands to the highlands, up in the mountain range at the border with Balochistan Province, the situation and landscape changes dramatically. It is incredibly dry—there are no green rice fields, there is no water. There is lots of dust. Communities are suffering from a lack of water and food. Their agricultural production is limited by rainfall as no additional water sources are available.
"We’ve been working in Pakistan since the 1990s, and I’m proud that our team will continue to support the local population with access to food, water, and health services, and is working on sustainable and participatory ways to bring about change and end hunger and malnutrition there."
The families own a few goats and sheep, but these don’t provide them with sufficient milk for consumption for the family. Women work hard within their households, to provide additional income sources. They work on mats and rope making, made from locally-sourced leaves. The areas are remote and the communities’ access to markets and other services like health centers is limited. Poverty is high, and seasonal migration for labor affects nearly every household—leaving behind women and children.
Unexpected common ground
While the two communities are very different in terms of their challenges and their access to resources and agro-ecology, they do share one major common concern—open defecation. This means people do not use latrines and washrooms, but use their fields and backyards when they need to use the facilities. This poses a major threat to community and individual hygiene, infectious and diarrheal diseases—one of the main underlying causes of child undernutrition and mortality in the area.
To combat these negative effects, our teams are engaged in community mobilization and education on hygiene and sanitation, as well as getting community members involved in building the necessary household and community latrines and washrooms. We also teach proper management of animal stables as a key lesson in community hygiene.
Pakistan is a country in economic transition, and there are still lots of concerns with people’s basic living conditions and poverty. Undernutrition rates are way too high—one in every five children is acutely malnourished. We’ve been working in Pakistan since the 1990s, and I’m proud that our team will continue to support the local population with access to food, water, and health services, and is working on sustainable and participatory ways to bring about change and end hunger and malnutrition there.
Written by: Silke Pietzch
Silke oversees the technical planning and implementation of 'Action Against Hunger' humanitarian programs in East Africa, Nigeria, D.R. Congo, Pakistan, and Cambodia.
www.actionagainsthunger.com
Makri Ja Jaara' - Spider webs This Applique Rilli is handmade by the women artisans from rural villages of Sindh (Pakistan). The comfortable material and warmth of hand-stitching with cotton threads makes it a must have quilt / bedsheet in your bedroom. The beautiful Rilli Art also fits perfectly with any color palette of walls of your drawing rooms and living rooms and it can also be used as a wall decoration. The fabric used is cotton (70%) + polyester (30%). This fabric material is light weight and its warm in winters and cool in summers due to mixture of cotton and polyster textures. The good thing about this material is that it is "wrinkles resistant", "colors are long-lasting" and the Rillis are "machine washable". www.facebook.com/IndusCrafts
